This if for my event planner friends, my fundraising readers, and anyone who feels stuck when it comes to breathing life into an event.

Status quo is not your friend when it comes to planning events (and is really never your friend). Status quo is a great way for an event to die a slow, painful death.

Here are a ten ways to kill status quo and improve your events year after year, time after time.

  1. Start from a blank slate. Or at least go through the exercise of it. Ask yourself, “What would this look like if we started from scratch?” Now act on some of the differences you identify.
  2. Ask for input from an outsider. You have friends, family, employees who don’t work on that particular project. Heck, even ask strangers. Be specific. “How can we make registration better?” “What is a creative way to give away door prizes?” “Where/how can we market this event that we aren’t already doing?”
  3. Over deliver. You made a promise of expectation to your sponsors and your event attendees. Deliver it. And then deliver even more value.
  4. Add fun. Everyone likes fun. Don’t be afraid of fun. Your emcee/host better be personable and fun!
  5. Ask your trusty friends Google and Pinterest.
  6. Add a conscious company component. People like doing good for others. Incorporate something that helps address a social/community problem into your event.
  7. Change the menu. Change the dessert. Change the colors. Theme. Logistics. Venue. Set-up. Order of the evening. Change SOMETHING and make it better, every time.
  8. Give away prizes some other way than reading numbers and more numbers and more numbers. That’s so snooze.
  9. Encourage social media postings. Encourage a hashtag. Use live video on social media.
  10. Incorporate technology. Used to deliver everything in person at a podium? Arrange some fun videos to use instead. Encouraging twitter posts with a specific hashtag? Project a live feed of the posts all night long.

Status quo is BORING and almost always leads to the slow death of events. Practice constant improvement (that means change) to avoid the death grip of the staleness that is status quo.